Wind Power

The singer-songwriter on her new album 'Middle Cyclone'

Updated Feb. 27, 2009 12:01 am ET

Neko Case didn't want to appear on the cover of her new album, but her record label was adamant. So she compromised -- by going over the top. In a photo, the flame-haired singer brandishes a sword while crouching barefoot on the hood of a 1967 Mercury Cougar. Ms. Case's tongue-in-cheek attitude creeps through the cryptic love songs and transcribed dreams on the album, "Middle Cyclone," which builds on her roots in the alternative country movement and her collaborations with the rock collective New Pornographers. Writing the album, "I got really into weather and nature, not even metaphorically, but literally,"...